Last Sunday, the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team lost to Japan in the World Cup Finals. The heavily favored U.S. team certainly had its chances to win, leading 1-0 and 2-1, but it squandered numerous opportunities to put the game away. After 120 minutes of grueling play, they lost in a nail biting 3-1 overtime shootout. This is a familiar story in sports: a team plays great and takes the lead in the first half, but they falter in the second half and suffer a crushing loss.
This is essentially the story of Solomon’s life! Solomon was the second son of King David and his favorite wife Bathsheba. He was raised in the royal palace and was raised with all the privileges of a king’s son. It appears that his mother had a larger influence on his life than his father, who he succeeded as king of Israel. He was only about 20 years old when he ascended to the throne and like his father, he served as king for 40 years.
During the first half of his reign, his heart was fully devoted to the Lord and he accomplished great feats for Israel, but during the second half, he turned his heart away from the Lord, worshipped idols, and watched his kingdom fracture before his death. Over all, Solomon served God with only half of his heart! Let’s see what we can learn from this half-hearted king!
Solomon Becomes King (I Kings 1-2)
When David had become old and his health was beginning to fail, he called for his wife Bathsheba and promised her that Solomon would be the next king over Israel. He also had the foresight to have Solomon publically anointed by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet so that the people of the kingdom would see and accept the transition of power.
While David lay on his deathbed, he gave Solomon some final instructions about how to rule the kingdom. In I Kings 2:1-4 he charged Solomon: “So be strong, show yourself a man, and observe what the LORD your God requires: Walk in his ways, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go, and that the LORD may keep his promise to me: ‘If your descendants watch how they live, and if they walk faithfully before me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’”
What David said to Solomon is still true for us today! If we want to prosper in everything we do and wherever we go, we must walk in his ways, keep his commands, and obey his Word. If we watch how we live and serve God faithfully with all of our hearts, he will bless us immensely. This is true for individuals, families, communities, and whole nations.
Is our country walking in his ways? Is our community keeping his commands? Are our families obeying his Word and watching how we live? Are you faithfully serving God with your whole heart?
Solomon’s Wisdom (I Kings 3-4)
Not long after Solomon became King of Israel, the Lord appeared to him during the middle of the night in a dream and said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” (3:5) After thanking the Lord for his kindness, he humbly recognized the difficult and daunting duty of leading God’s people, the nation of Israel, so instead of asking for long life, wealth, or military power, he said, “So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.” (3:9) Therefore, God was pleased to bless Solomon with a wise and discerning heart and even the things that he didn’t ask for.
It is said that Solomon had a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on a seashore. His wisdom was greater than anyone in the world. Men of all nations came to listen to his wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom. (4:29-34)
With his incredible wisdom, Solomon also wrote the Ecclesiastes, a philosophical book about the meaning of life, most of Proverbs, a book about living a wise life, and the Song of Solomon, a book about human relationships and sexuality. Solomon used his God-given wisdom to honor the Lord!
This episode reminds me of the cartoons and movies where someone finds a magic lamp, rubs it, and a genie emerges from a cloud of smoke saying, “I will grant you three wishes.” I have never understood why the person doesn’t just ask for an infinite number of wishes, but I guess that wouldn’t make a very good story. Solomon already showed wisdom by asking God for wisdom!
If God appeared to you during the night and told you to ask him for anything, what would you ask for? Solomon asked for wisdom because he really cared to know the difference between right and wrong. I wonder how much we care about the difference between right and wrong!
Solomon’s Temple and Palace (I Kings 5-8)
It had always been David’s goal to build a proper temple in Jerusalem for worshipping the Lord, but because he was always engaged in war, he never had the opportunity. When the Lord blessed Solomon with an extended period of rest when there was no war or disaster in Israel, Solomon set his heart on fulfilling his dad’s dream of building a temple for the Lord.
So, Solomon put in an order with Hiram King of Tyre to receive timber from the famous cedar forests of Lebanon. It took 7 years to complete the all cedar Temple and it was adorned with gold throughout. It was a breathtaking sight to behold.
After he built the temple, he decided to go ahead and build a new palace for himself as well. This is where Solomon the wise made a foolish move: not that he built a new palace, but that his palace was larger, more elaborate, and it took 13 years to build.
Even though Solomon did a great thing by building the temple in Jerusalem, here is where we see him begin to follow in his father’s footsteps by allowing some pride, selfishness, and ego creep into his soul. It took him twice as long to build his house as it did the Lord’s house. His heart become more focused on himself than the Lord.
That is often the way it goes for us too! We can be going along with our lives doing well to honor God, and then all of the sudden a little bit of pride and selfishness creeps into our hearts. We may even be tempted to think, “Look at all I have done for God; now it is time to do something for me!” We must be careful not to allow anything to become more important to us than God! We must always remember that he is the one who deserves all the glory, not us!
Solomon’s Splendor (I Kings 9-10)
Once Solomon’s great architectural goals were accomplished, he turned his heart toward accumulating wealth. Not only did he receive extravagant gifts from foreign royalty who came to hear his wisdom and see his buildings, but he also became quite skilled in international trade. He received revenues from merchants and traders and all of the Arabian kings and governors of the land. (10:15) He accumulated articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons, spices, horses, mules, livestock, chariots, and lumber. (10:25) It was said that while Solomon was on the throne, silver was as common as stones in Jerusalem. (10:27)
When Solomon fixed his heart on accumulating wealth, he took his focus off the Lord. By monetary standards, Solomon had become the Bill Gates of his time. He was the wealthiest man in the world. But by spiritual standards, his heart was forsaking the Lord. This led him toward idolatry, which would eventually tear his kingdom apart.
It is no coincidence that Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matt. 6:24) and the Apostle Paul said, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (I Tim. 6:10)
This is why accumulating wealth is so dangerous; it draws our hearts away from the Lord. Especially if you have ever owned your own business, you know that making money takes a lot of time and energy—time and energy that could be used to focus on the Lord. Money is one of the most prominent idols in America today.
Don’t let a desire for money or material possessions draw your heart away from the Lord! Don’t measure the success of your life by the size of your bank account or the things you own! Don’t fall into the trap of comparing your kingdom to other people’s kingdoms! Don’t make the same mistakes that Solomon made!
Solomon’s Wives (I Kings 11)
Well, Solomon had some issues with greed and selfishness, but it was his problems with women that pushed him toward outright idolatry. Look with me as I read I Kings 11:1-8! Solomon disobeyed God’s prohibition against marrying foreign women. It wasn’t that God had any problem with interracial marriage, but he had a problem with interfaith marriage because he knew that this almost always leads to idolatry.
Not only did Solomon break this command once by marrying Pharaoh’s daughter, but he broke it 1000 times. I Kings 11:3 tells us that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Can you imagine? Most men find it difficult to …well, never mind! Although the purpose of many of these marriages was to secure diplomatic relationships, increase the royal harem, and expand the splendor of the king, the text says that “he held fast to them in love.” (I Kings 11:2) It took 1000 women to satisfy his appetite for sex, money, and power, but it was precisely these appetites that destroyed his kingdom.
Just like God had warned, as Solomon grew old, his many wives turned his heart to other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God as the heart of David had been. (I Kings 11:4) David, amid all of his faults, loved God with his whole heart and never worshipped idols; Solomon only loved God with half of his heart!
God had been so gracious to Solomon. His great love for Solomon is seen in his given name “Jedidiah” which means “loved by the Lord.” He had graciously chosen him to succeed David as king even though he had older brothers who were in line for the throne. He blessed him with an easy and privileged early life in David’s court. He personally visited him twice, blessed him with divine wisdom, and gave him more wealth than he needed. He gave him political stability, military peace, and the resources to build a great house of worship. All of this should have created in Solomon a lifelong gratitude and devotion of the deepest kind, but it didn’t.
When we consider everything that God had done for Solomon, it seems impossible that he could have been so foolish to succumb to idolatry. Yet it happened, not over night, but slowly over the years. His pride, selfishness, ego, greed, lust, compelled him to erect a royal palace more glorious than God’s holy temple and take 700 wives in direct defiance to God’s command. He tried to build a kingdom for himself rather than the kingdom of God and he worshipped idols instead of the one true God.
When we consider everything God has done for us, it seems impossible that we could be so foolish to succumb to idolatry, but we do. For most of us, it doesn’t happen overnight, but it happens slowly over the years. Pride and selfishness creep into our souls. We become consumed with making money, accumulating possessions, or making a name for ourselves. We become discontent with the spouse we have and go looking for another. And then we wake up some morning and ask, “What happened to my relationship with God?
Like David last week, I hope we will all learn from Solomon’s mistakes. Use the wisdom God has given you! Be careful you don’t become consumed with the accumulation of wealth! Don’t crave power! Don’t be overcome by a desire for worldly success! Be careful who you marry! Avoid idolatry! And give God your whole heart, not just half!